Prior to the formation of the Revolutionary Ensemble in 1970, Jenkins, recently returned from Europe, had been playing with
Anthony Braxton and
Leo Smith in a group called
Creative Construction Company. Following a May 19, 1970 performance by the group at
Greenwich Village's "
Peace Church", Braxton left, and joined
Chick Corea's group, which became known as
Circle. Jenkins began playing with a large group that included Sirone, who had previously played with
Pharoah Sanders,
Marion Brown, and
Gato Barbieri, and to whom Jenkins had been introduced by drummer
Sunny Murray. (Sirone later recalled that other musicians told him "You must be crazy. Violin, bass, and drums!") They recruited drummer Frank Clayton, but he was soon replaced by
Jerome Cooper, who had been playing in Europe with
Steve Lacy,
Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the
Art Ensemble of Chicago, and others, and who, after leaving Europe and arriving in New York, contacted Jenkins at the recommendation of
Roscoe Mitchell. The trio began rehearsing on a regular basis at Ornette Coleman's Artists House loft, where Jenkins had been living, as well as at the home of artist
Fred Brown. Jenkins recalled: "we got together and practiced every day... five days a week, anywhere from 11 to two o'clock. I mean, we just hung out. We just played and played, and my art of improvisation got tremendously better, and the group got beautifully tight." In 1971, the group began rehearsing at the annex to
Joseph Papp's
Public Theater, then presented a concert there. The following year, they booked a four week engagement at the
Mercer Arts Center. According to Jenkins, "first week... nobody was there. Second week, two or three. Third week it was half packed. The fourth week it was jam-packed." In March of that year, they presented a concert at the Peace Church, a recording of which was released on the
ESP-Disk label as their first album
Vietnam. On December 31, 1972, they performed at the
St. Marks Theater, and released a live recording of the concert as their second album,
Manhattan Cycles, issued on
India Navigation the following year. The group also landed a short-lived recording contract with
Horizon Records, a subsidiary of
A&M Records, allowing them to record and release their first studio album, ''
The People's Republic''. (A&M closed Horizon Records in 1979 following a slump in music sales.) In 1977, the group released their fifth album,
Revolutionary Ensemble, recorded live in Austria, on the
Enja label. However, work began to dry up, and, at the same time, the musicians were being pulled in different artistic directions. Cooper recalled: "I was going into more of a shamanistic journey. I was hanging out with this Mexican, pre-Columbian drummer, Antonio Zapata. And Sirone was going into theater and moving to Berlin. Leroy was going into a more notated European music." The group disbanded that year. However, in 2004, the Mutable Music label reissued
The Psyche on CD, and the trio reunited, performing at the
Vision Festival, and recording their second and final studio album,
And Now..., for
Pi Recordings. In May of the following year, they performed in Warsaw, Poland; the concert was recorded and released by Mutable Music in 2008 as
Beyond the Boundary of Time. In November 2005, they played in Genoa, Italy, yielding the album
Counterparts, released by Mutable in 2012. Jenkins's death in 2007 precluded any further reunions. ==Legacy and music==